Income Investing

[hendi_alex]

I agree with all of your points. My counter point is that we don't have a clue what the next ten years will hold. Because of that ignorance, I prefer to rely on a mixed approach, rather than choosing a single approach and declaring it to be the holy grail of investing. As posted before, probably 20%-30% will be invested in big dividend growth stocks picked by individual ticker. Perhaps another 10%-20% would also fit the DG growth model, but will come from overlap in variously themed funds. 10%-20% will consist of REIT exposure. 10%-20% MLP exposure. 20%-30% energy exposure. 10% other than energy commodities. Funds will be further diversified by US/ex. US and developed vs emerging. At some point, a significant allocation may be given to fixed income, but that is likely pretty far into the future.

For sure there is no correct answer to this investing riddle. It seems to me that the best one can do is educate, find a comfort zone that appears to meet needs, develop a plan, and then stick to it making any changes based upon reflection rather than emotion.

My main purpose posting on this themed site is to suggest that a diversified approach which includes several strategies may at least be worth a look.

You bring up anther great point about which much has been written. It is probably worthy of its own thread. The topic: the affect that the timing of retirement has on the probability of outliving one's portfolio. This factor is huge for most investors who are only marginally funded for retirement. Another related topic that might be worth revisiting is the 4% rule.